Review: Casa Particular Julio y Yinet, Santiago de Cuba

Location

This casa is in a good location just a 5 minute walk from the centre of town. A taxi from the Viazul bus terminal will cost you $5. We arrived right after hurricane Sandy and so much of the city had been damaged including over 100,000 residential houses.

To lay your head

This casa particular is spacious – the upstairs room with terrace was being renovated when we were there, but it looked grand and had great views over the street.

Our room was comfortable and clean and we were well looked after considering the hurricane had destroyed much of the city days earlier.

The extended family that live here are lovely and very helpful with local knowledge, also Yinet has perfect English which is great if you are used to half understanding conversations in Spanish.

Eating

We can’t say much for the food in the restaurants of Santiago de Cuba due to the hurricane – there were many limitations at the time so we ate solely at the casa.

Yinet and the in-house cook are fantastic cooks and the meals were delicious, varied and huge! Of all the meals we had in Cuban casa’s the dinners here were slightly more expensive and simply huge – we actually felt a little guilty being served so much food when people nearby were struggling.

Vegetarians are extremely well catered for, Yinet has a passion for food and it shows.

Breakfast $4, Dinner $8-10

Internet in Cuba

See our post regarding internet in Cuba

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy tore through the city days before our arrival – streets were still full of trees and debris from crumbling buildings and people were industriously rebuilding and cleaning up. Over 100,000 houses were damaged including 20,000 that were beyond repair leaving many homeless.

Despite this the city still has character was an interesting place to visit, also your money spent here is more needed than usual.

We say

This is a great place to stay in Santiago de Cuba, if you find yourself here, give Yinet and Julio a call! We didn’t get to experience the nightlife and we didn’t get the normal Santiago de Cuba experience so would love to hear from others here about what you thought of the city itself.

More Cuba Reviews…

Serena Star-Leonard is a business coach, writer and blogger travelling around the world for 3.5 years and counting.
As well as capturing stories of inspiring people who are making a difference to their communities, her passion is to help people find a way to do the things they love for a living.